When historians study the public response to coronavirus 20 or 30 years from now — assuming humanity still exists in some identifiable way (sorry, dark thoughts) — one of the conclusions they may reach is that it was a turning point for education.
Because of COVID-19, many of the nation’s public schools, including all of Ohio’s, are marching into remote learning, distance learning, e-learning, or whatever name is given to a delivery system that does not involve daily, face-to-face interactions with a teacher.
Distance learning is not new, of course. Correspondence courses, in the era before the Internet, allowed students to snail mail assignments to their teachers and wait weeks for a response.
And e-learning has been around for some time, too. In many cases, such courses blend face-to-face meetings a few times a semester with copious online interaction. Other models are completely digital, with students and instructors never meeting in person. This type of e-learning is tailored to students who can’t commit to in-person attendance because of work schedules or illness.
Readers may remember the uproar over Ohio’s ill-fated digital academies, where lack of government oversight mixed with greed on the part of service providers created a crisis when it couldn’t be determined how often students logged into class, or if they did at all.
But this is the first time when all of Ohio’s students, including those who prefer face-to-face interactions, have been funneled into computer-only classes for a limited (we hope) time.
In the short term, it should work, albeit with many hiccups. One unintended consequence: The experience will force us to grapple with the very definition of what school is.
For instance, time in the seat. While old models of compulsory attendance are crumbling, replaced by systems that favor demonstrated competence, many of us still equate education with completing (some say “enduring”) a set number of hours in a common location.
E-learning could challenge that assumption. If students can show mastery of two-variable equations in half the time, why should they have to wait for classmates to catch up? If students want to complete all the assignments in a composition course in four weeks, why should they have to sit in class for two more months? Showing mastery of a concept and moving on is easier online than anywhere else, provided the coursework is free of a lockstep structure to keep students from advancing too quickly.
Online work involves a ruthless paring down of curriculum to the bare essentials. It forces teachers to select outcomes that are the most important, along with the assignments that teach those outcomes, and to let the fluff fall aside. Under such a system, capable students could finish required coursework with time left over for activities they enjoy. A student with a natural inclination toward chemistry, dance or welding could spend more time doing that, and less time reading literature, or vice versa.
If schooling becomes more efficient, schools — and especially high schools — may find it more practical to run schedules that require students’ in-person attendance half as long as they are required now. A school could operate a morning and an afternoon shift, with the same teachers seeing different groups of students during the course of a day. Or schools could schedule some students for Monday/Wednesday classes and others for Tuesday/Thursday rosters, with little to no overlap.
On their “off” time or days, students could complete coursework online, getting assistance during in-person visits the following class day. Classes could last for as little as, say, 20 minutes for students who understand the material, longer for students who require extra help.
Teachers would model the work to be done, and students would complete it outside of class, online. Discipline problems could be separated by shift; two students can’t butt heads if they aren’t in school together.
The implication for taxpayers would be profound. Districts could operate in spaces much smaller than the ones they currently occupy, since at any given time, fewer students would be in the buildings. Fewer buses would be needed, but they would run twice as much, for different shifts.
An online model would also force society to deal with inequities that impact education. Schools, in conjunction with private business, would have to provide Internet services for students, so that everybody could access class materials. Unequal online access is a major concern in this coronavirus-forced sabbatical.
Nothing I’ve described here is revolutionary, and much of it is happening already, but on a smaller scale. This forced exodus from the school building, coupled with a mandate that education must continue, could accelerate the pace.
Nothing good can come from the coronavirus. Indirectly, however, it could irrevocably change what it means to be “in school.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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